and they agreed to be bound by all laws passed by Congress, upon the express condition, and none other, that they should be approved by the president, or passed, his objections to the contrary notwithstanding, by a vote of two thirds of both houses. Upon this condition they have a right to insist, as a part of the compact to which they gave their assent.

A bill might be passed by Congress against the will of the whole people of a particular state, and against the votes of its senators and all its representatives. However prejudicial it might be to the interests of such states, it would be bound by it if the president shall approve it, or it shall be passed by a vote of two thirds of both houses; but it has a right to demand that the president shall exercise his constitutional power and arrest it, if his judgment is against it. If he surrender this power, or fail to exercise it in a case where he can not approve, it would make his formal approval a mere mockery, and would be itself a violation of the constitution, and the dissenting state would become bound by a law which had not been passed according to the sanction of the constitution.

The objection to the exercise of the veto power is founded upon an idea respecting the popular will, which, if carried out, would annihilate state sovereignty, and substitute for the present federal government a consolidation, directed by a supposed numerical majority. A revolution of the government would be silently effected, and the states would be subjected to laws to which they had never given their constitutional consent.

The supreme court of the United States is invested with the power to declare, and has declared, acts of Congress passed with the concurrence of the senate, the house of representatives, and the approval of the president, to be unconstitutional and void; and yet none, it is presumed, can be found, who will be disposed to strip this highest judicial tribunal under the constitution of this acknowledged power-a power necessary alike to its independence and the rights of individuals.

For the same reason that the executive veto should, according to the doctrine maintained, be rendered nugatory, and be practically expunged from the constitution, this power of the court should also be rendered nugatory and be expunged, because it restrains the legislative and executive will, and because the exercise of such a power by the court may be regarded as being in conflict with the capacity of the people to govern themselves. Indeed, there is more reason for striking this power of the court from the constitution than there is that of the qualified veto of the president; because the decision of the court is final, and can never be reversed, even though both houses of Congress and the president should be unanimous in opposition to it; whereas the veto of the president may be overruled by a vote of two thirds of both houses of Congress, or by the people at the polls.

It is obvious that to preserve the system established by the constitution, each of the co-ordinate branches of the government-the executive, legislative, and judicial-must be left in the exercise of its appropriate powers. If the executive or the judicial branch be deprived of powers conferred upon either as checks on the legislative, the preponderance of the latter will become disproportionate and absorbing, and the others impotent for the accomplishment of the great objects for which they were established. Organized as they are by the constitution, they work together harmoniously for the public good. If the executive and the judiciary shall be deprived of the constitutional powers invested in them, and of their due proportions, the equilibrium of the system must be destroyed, and consoli

dation, with the most pernicions results, must ensue-a consolidation of unchecked, despotic power, exercised by majorities of the legislative branch.

The executive, legislative, and judicial, each constitutes a separate coordinate department of the government, and each is independent of the others. In the performance of their respective duties under the constitution, neither can, in its legitimate action, control the others. They each act upon their several responsibilities in their respective spheres; but if the doctrines now maintained be correct, the executive must become practically subordinate to the legislative, and the judiciary must become subordinate to both the legislative and the executive; and thus the whole power of the government would be merged in a single department. Whenever, if ever, this shall occur, our glorious system of well-regulated selfgovernment will crumble into ruins to be succeeded, first by anarchy, and finally by monarchy or despotism. I am far from believing that this doctrine is the sentiment of the American people; and during the short period which remains in which it will be my duty to administer the executive department, it will be my aim to maintain its independence, and discharge its duties, without infringing upon the powers or duties of either of the other departments of the government.

The power of the executive veto was exercised by the first and most illustrious of my predecessors, and by four of his successors who preceded me in the administration of the government, and, it is believed, in no instance prejudicially to the public interests. It has never been, and there

is but little danger that it ever can be, abused. No president will ever desire, unnecessarily, to place his opinion in opposition to that of Congress. He must always exercise the power reluctantly, and only in cases where his convictions make it a matter of stern duty, which he can not escape. Indeed, there is more danger that the president, from the repugnance he must always feel to come in collision with Congress. may fail to exercise it in cases where the preservation of the constitution from infraction, or the public good, may demand it, than that he will ever exercise it unnecessarily or wantonly.

me.

During the period I have administered the executive department of the government, great and important questions of public policy, foreign and domestic, have arisen, upon which it was my duty to act. It may, indeed, be truly said that my administration has fallen upon eventful times. I have felt most sensibly the weight of the high responsibilities devolved upon. With no other object than the public good, the enduring fame, and permanent prosperity of my country, I have pursued the convictions of my own best judgment. The impartial arbitrament of enlightened public opinion, present and future, will determine how far the public policy I have maintained, and the measures I have from time to time recommended, may have tended to advance or retard the public prosperity at home, and to elevate or depress the estimate of our national character abroad.

Invoking the blessings of the Almighty upon your deliberations at your present important session, my ardent hope is, that in a spirit of harmony and concord you may be guided to wise results, and such as may redound to the happiness, the honor, and the glory, of our beloved country.

SPECIAL MESSAGE.

AUGUST 14, 1848.*

To the House of Representatives of the United States:

When the president has given his official sanction to a bill which has passed Congress, usage requires that he shall notify the house in which it originated of that fact. The mode of giving this notification has been by an oral message delivered by his private secretary.

Having this day approved and signed an act entitled "An act to estab lish the territorial government of Oregon," I deem it proper, under the existing circumstances, to communicate the fact in a more solemn form. The deeply interesting and protracted discussions which have taken place in both houses of Congress, and the absorbing interest which the subject has excited throughout the country, justify, in my judgment, this departure from the form of notice observed in other cases. In this communication with a co-ordinate branch of the government, made proper by the considerations referred to, I shall frankly and without reserve express the reasons which have constrained me not to withhold my signature from the bill to establish a government over Oregon, even though the two territories of New Mexico and California are to be left for the present without governments. None doubt that it is proper to establish a government in Oregon. Indeed it has been too long delayed. I have made repeated recommendations to Congress to this effect. The petitions of the people of that distant region have been presented to the government, and ought not to be disregarded. To give to them a regularly-organized government and the protection of our laws, which as citizens of the United States they claim, is a high duty on our part, and one which we are bound to perform, unless there be controlling reasons to prevent it.

In the progress of all governments, questions of such transcendent importance occasionally arise as to cast in the shade all those of a mere party character. But one such question can now be agitated in this country, and this may endanger our glorious Union--the source of our greatness and all our political blessings. This question is slavery. With the slaveholding states, this does not embrace merely the rights of property, however valuable; but it ascends far higher and involves the domestic peace and security of every family.

The fathers of the constitution, the wise and patriotic men who laid the foundation of our institutions, foreseeing the danger from this quarter, acted in a spirit of compromise and mutual concession on this dangerous and delicate subject, and their wisdom ought to be the guide of their successors. While they left to the states, exclusively, the question of domestic slavery within their respective limits, they provided that slaves who might escape into other states not recognising the institution of slavery shall "be delivered up on the claim of the party to whom such service or labor may be due."

Upon this foundation the matter rested until the Missouri question

arose.

In December, 1819, application was made to Congress by the people of the Missouri territory for admission into the Union as a state. The dis

*This message was received from the President of the United States at the close of the previous session, but was not read and entered on the journal of the house till Dec. 6, 1848.

cussion upon the subject in Congress involved the question of slavery, and was prosecuted with such violence as to produce excitements alarming to every patriot in the Union. But the good genius of conciliation, which presided at the birth of our institutions, finally prevailed; and the Missouri compromise was adopted. The eighth section of the act of Congress of the 6th of March, 1820, "to authorize the people of the Missouri territory to form a constitution and state government," &c., provides: "That in all that territory ceded by France to the United States, under the name of Louisiana, which lies north of thirty-six degrees and thirty minutes north latitude, not included within the limits of the state contemplated by this act, slavery and involuntary servitude, otherwise than in the punishment of crimes, whereof the parties shall have been duly convicted, shall be, and is hereby, for ever prohibited: Provided, always, that any person escaping into the same from whom labor or service is lawfully claimed in any state or territory of the United States, such fugitive may be lawfully reclaimed and conveyed to the person claiming his or her labor or service, as aforesaid."

This compromise had the effect of calming the troubled waves, and restoring peace and good-will throughout the states of the Union.

The Missouri question had excited intense agitation of the public mind, and threatened to divide the country into geographical parties, alienating the feelings of attachment which each portion of our Union should bear to every other. The compromise allayed the excitement, tranquillized the popular mind, and restored confidence and fraternal feelings. Its authors were hailed as public benefactors.

I do not doubt that a similar adjustment of the questions which now agitate the public mind, would produce the same happy results. If the legislation of Congress on the subject of the other territories shall not be adopted in a spirit of conciliation and compromise, it is impossible that the country can be satisfied, or that the most disastrous consequences shall fail to ensue.

When Texas was admitted into the Union, the same spirit of compromise which guided our predecessors in the admission of Missouri, a quarter of a century before, prevailed, without any serious opposition. The joint resolution for annexing Texas to the United States, approved March the first, one thousand eight hundred and forty-five, provides that "such states as may be formed out of that portion of said territory lying south of thirty-six degrees thirty minutes, north latitude, commonly known as the Missouri compromise line, shall be admitted into the Union with or without slavery, as the people of each state asking admission may desire. And in such state or states as shall be formed out of said territory north of the Missouri compromise line, slavery or involuntary servitude (except for crime) shall be prohibited."

The territory of Oregon lies far north of thirty-six degrees thirty minutes, the Missouri and Texas compromise line. Its southern boundary is the parallel of forty-two degrees, leaving the intermediate distance to be three hundred and thirty geographical miles. And it is because the provisions of this bill are not inconsistent with the laws of the Missouri compromise, if extended from the Rio Grande to the Pacific ocean, that I have not felt at liberty to withhold my sanction. Had it embraced territories south of that compromise, the question presented for my consideration would have been of a far different character, and my action upon it must have corresponded with my convictions.

Ought we now to disturb the Missouri and Texas compromises? Ought we at this late day, in attempting to annul what has been so long established and acquiesced in, to excite sectional divisions and jealousies, to alienate the people of different portions of the Union from each other, and to endanger the existence of the Union itself?

From the adoption of the federal constitution, during a period of sixty years, our progress as a nation has been without example in the annals of history. Under the protection of a bountiful Providence, we have advanced with giant strides in the career of wealth and prosperity. We have enjoyed the blessings of freedom to a greater extent than any other people, ancient or modern, under a government which has preserved order, and secured to every citizen life, liberty, and property. We have now become an example for imitation to the whole world. The friends of freedom, in every clime, point with admiration to our institutions. Shall we, then, at the moment when the people of Europe are devoting all their energies in the attempt to assimilate their institutions to our own, peril all our blessings by despising the lessons of experience, and refusing to tread in the footsteps which our fathers have trodden? And for what cause would we endanger our glorious Union? The Missouri compromise contains a prohibition of slavery throughout all that vast region extending twelve and a half degrees along the Pacific, from the parallel of thirty-six degrees thirty minutes, to that of forty-nine degrees, and east from that ocean to and beyond the summit of the Rocky mountains. Why, then, should our institutions be endangered because it is proposed to submit to the people of the remainder of our newly-acquired territory lying south of thirty-six degrees thirty minutes, embracing less than four degrees of latitude, the question whether, in the language of the Texas compromise, they "shall be admitted [as a state] into the Union with or without slavery." Is this a question to be pushed to such extremities by excited partisans on the one side or the other, in regard to our newly acquired distant possessions on the Pacific, as to endanger the union of thirty glorious states which constitute our confederacy? I have an abiding confidence that the sober reflection and sound patriotism of the people of all the states will bring them to the conclusion, that the dictate of wisdom is to follow the example of those who have gone before us, and settle this dangerous question on the Missouri compromise, or some other equitable compromise, which would respect the rights of all, and prove satisfactory to the different portions of the Union.

Holding as a sacred trust the executive authority for the whole Union, and bound to guard the rights of all, I should be constrained, by a sense of duty, to withhold my official sanction from any measure which would conflict with these important objects.

I can not more appropriately close this message than by quoting from the farewell address of the father of his country, His warning voice can never be heard in vain by the American people. If the spirit of prophecy had distinctly presented to his view, more than a half century ago, the present distracted condition of his country, the language which he then employed could not have been more appropriate than it is to the present occasion. He declared :

"The unity of government which constitutes you one people is also now dear to you. It is justly so, for it is a main pillar in the edifice of your real independence, the support of your tranquillity at home, your peace abroad, of your safety, of your prosperity, of that very liberty